


Bloody Knuckles

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: & mutual pining and them being mad about it, M/M, tiny bit of blood but it's not described much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:08:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28315044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: “I can’t help but notice, Jamie, you have a certain – knack, for getting yourself into trouble on my behalf -”“Ye have a knack for gettin’ yourself into trouble. Why does it bother ye so much? I’m only savin’ your life, ye know.”Jamie and the Doctor have an argument about Jamie getting himself injured, which is really an argument about something else entirely.
Relationships: Second Doctor/Jamie McCrimmon
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Bloody Knuckles

**Author's Note:**

> for [ettelwenailinon](ettelwenailinon.tumblr.com).
> 
> on [tumblr](https://the--highlanders.tumblr.com/post/638481479706574848/bloody-knuckles).

“ _Jamie_.”

“I know what you’re gonnae say.”

The Doctor settled down beside him with a huff and a flick of his coat, looking for all the world like some sort of startled, ruffled bird. If he had not known any better, Jamie could almost have believed the violence of the motion had sent loosened feathers floating away from him. “How _could_ you?” he spluttered out, as if he had not heard Jamie’s words. “It was a – a -” He puffed up his cheeks, eyes wild and glinting with pent-up fury.

“Go on, then.” Jamie had not meant to bite back with such venom – if he was honest with himself, he was surprised that he still had the energy for that – but his blood was stirring unbidden, his hackles rising. They had been having this argument more and more often, of late, and try as he might he could never _really_ make the Doctor understand. He would claim he did – and then go on and on in his righteous anger, lecturing Jamie about how _dangerous_ it was, to do whatever he had done, and all the time he would conveniently forget that it had been his own life in danger to begin with, or the lives of countless others. No matter how much he shouted, Jamie had never quite gotten him to realise that.

And then, there was the worst thing of all – the fact that he had an awful tendency to turn around and do the exact same thing. Last time it had taken him only a few days to go against his own warnings about taking undue risks, when Jamie had been perfectly safe on his own. This time, with missiles still falling over the city, and the data records they needed still just out of reach, Jamie could only imagine that it would take him less than a few hours to throw himself into harm’s way. It had been stupid of him to jump in front of the Doctor when that blast had hit him, he thought bitterly – though not in the way the Doctor meant it. Now, slumped over the bed, his hands and face littered with cuts and every bone in his body aching, he was of no use to anyone. If the Doctor did decide to do something he shouldn’t, there would be nobody to stop him.

“It was _reckless_ ,” the Doctor was saying. Briefly, Jamie wondered what he had been talking about – but it hardly mattered, he supposed. They _did_ tend to say the same things to each other every time. “It was entirely unnecessary – I had the whole situation under control -” His voice was still tight with barely-constrained anger, but his hands were drawing a roll of bandages out of his pocket, tugging unsteadily on the loose end to wrap it around Jamie’s palm. They moved almost of their own accord, turning the fraying length of gauze over with a sort of tenderness that was almost heart-wrenching. Staring down at them, Jamie let the Doctor’s scolding words fade into background noise. His hands could almost have belonged to someone else – a someone else who was not speaking louder and louder as he grew more and more insistent.

Well, he might as well say the same thing that he always said himself. “Ye didnae have anything under control,” he said flatly. “They might’ve killed ye. An’ I couldnae let that happen.”

“Everything was quite alright -”

“It wasn’t.”

“I assure you, it _was_ -”

“It wasn’t!” Jamie’s shout surprised even himself. They stared at each other for a moment, shocked into a wide-eyed silence. It had come too soon, he thought. He knew the pattern of these arguments well by now. They were not supposed to have run out of words yet. “It wasn’t,” he repeated softly, as if they could start the argument up again like it was a broken-down motor. One of those gadgets that played music, stuck on repeat. “They would’ve killed ye.”

“I would have been perfectly fine.”

“I cannae – I couldnae -” Jamie scrubbed his hand over his face. “I couldnae take that chance.”

They were speaking more softly than usual now, too, the Doctor pausing in bandaging Jamie’s hands to ease himself off the bed and kneel before him. He looked so terribly small like that, so awfully vulnerable that Jamie felt his heart seize up in his chest. It was a mercy, he thought, that the argument seemed to have ground to a halt. To hear the Doctor insist that he did not need protecting when he looked so vulnerable – he did not think he could have borne that.

“Jamie,” the Doctor said, still quiet. “Why – ah -” He licked his lips, swallowing like his throat was thick with something. “Why do you do this? For me?”

 _Do you really not know?_ Jamie wanted to ask. It seemed absurd that someone as clever as the Doctor could miss the obvious for so long. And yet the Doctor did have a terrible habit of overlooking the most ordinary of things. Perhaps he simply was that clueless. “It’s no’ just you,” he said. There was a grain of truth in that, at least. “I’d do it for Ben an’ Polly, too. An’ for everyone here.”

“I know,” the Doctor murmured. For a brief moment, Jamie was struck again by incredulity that he actually believed it. “But – I can’t help but notice, Jamie, you have a certain – knack, for getting yourself into trouble on my behalf -”

Ah.

There it was, then.

And he had no good answer for it, other than the unspeakable truth. He had known that all along.

“Ye have a knack for gettin’ yourself into trouble,” he parroted back weakly. “Why does it bother ye so much?” His voice turned snappish, defensive. “I’m only savin’ your life, ye know.”

“ _Why does it bother_ -” The Doctor dropped Jamie’s hand as he turned away, and Jamie winced as it knocked against the bedframe. “Do you really think I’m – I’m pleased, at you risking your life for me?”

The venom had drained out of his voice, replaced by – _something_ else. Quite what it was, Jamie could not say. But it was just a few notes away from exhausted, half-drowned out by the ear-piercing rumble of a bomb falling just a little too close to them, and Jamie wondered if they really ought to be having this argument now, when there was so much else to be done. Reaching out one hand, he laid it gently on the Doctor’s shoulder, but drew it back towards his chest when he was shaken off.

The soft _oof_ of pain he had let out must have been louder than he had thought, because the Doctor turned around to take his hands up again, eyes crinkled into soft regret. “Oh – oh, Jamie, I _am_ sorry -” He raised Jamie’s hands up, leaning his head down over them, and for one bizarre, ecstatic moment Jamie thought he might be about to kiss the backs of them. But he paused just an inch away, his eyes kept fixed downwards so Jamie could not read whatever thoughts might be swimming just below the surface. “I _am_ sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t mean to – I shouldn’t like to see you hurt, you know.”

“Aye, I know.” There was that lump in Jamie’s throat again. “I wouldnae like tae see ye hurt, either. That’s why I did it.”

“Yes – yes, I know.” The Doctor released one of Jamie’s hands again – but this time he folded it neatly over the other before reaching up to brush at his eyes. Surely the dampness in them had been brought on by the dust shaken from the crumbling ceiling. It could hardly be real tears. “But it wouldn’t be a fair exchange, you know. Your life for mine.” He took up the bandages again, carrying on with wrapping Jamie’s hand, still with that same sort of tenderness. It really would be better if he left it alone, Jamie thought, slowly and deliberately, like he could make himself believe it. Then there would be nothing to throw seeds of hope into the crevices of his chest, scattering them over his ribs and into his lungs for them to cling on tight and take root. Plants that flowered in the tiniest of spaces were always the hardest to get rid of. And these were sown entirely by his own hand, of course. Anything he might think – anything he might be imagining on the Doctor’s part – it was all just wistful thinking. The Doctor simply carried on binding his hands, like he was oblivious to the redness in Jamie’s cheeks.

Another bomb crashed down over the city above them, setting off another cacophony of screams and sirens and splintering glass. A trickle of dust fell from the ceiling, settling powdery white plaster over Jamie’s shoulder, but he did not dare pull his hands away to brush it off.

“They need ye,” he said softly. “Everyone here needs ye. An’ everyone in a million other places, they – if somethin’ happened to ye -”

“They need you too.” The Doctor said it with such firmness that for a moment, Jamie almost believed it. “What would they do without you?”

He scoffed, a little more forcefully than he needed to, and more for his own sake than the Doctor’s. “They don’t need me. Not like they need you.”

“Of course they do. And -” The Doctor swallowed, glancing away, but his grip on Jamie’s hands became almost painfully tight. “I need you too.”

Well, then.

It had been a silly thing to hope for, he had told himself. The sort of thing he repeated to himself late at night, when he felt most lost and out of place – _the Doctor needs me, the Doctor needs me, the Doctor needs me_. An easy answer to trip off his tongue when people asked exactly what he was doing, tagging along after someone who understood so much more than he ever could. But it had never been more than that. It had never been the _truth_. To hear it now, from the Doctor himself – the impact of it shuddered up his spine, a deep, visceral feeling that it _meant_ something.

“Well -” The Doctor simply looked a little bemused, glancing down at Jamie’s hands. “Yes, of course I do, Jamie. Did you really think that I didn’t?”

It must have been the painkillers, Jamie thought, knocking his head about and making him do foolish things. He _had_ been given a strong dose, after all. Or perhaps it was the fear and adrenaline and relief, still whirling around in his blood. Or the constant thunder of bombs, dulling his mind until he felt like he was in a dream. But just what made him do it hardly mattered. The Doctor needed him, and he needed the Doctor, and maybe – just maybe – there was the remotest of chances that they wanted the same thing.

Before he quite knew what he was doing, he had leant forward and kissed the Doctor, bending down at an awkward angle to press on his shoulders until he had sat down on the ground. It was awkward, and messy, and _uncomfortable_ most of all, and he could feel his odd posture stiffening in his already-aching bones, and _the Doctor was kissing him back_ , grasping at his elbows and then his sides, pushing himself back up onto his knees to match Jamie’s height more equally.

He pulled back in degrees, laughing at the Doctor’s insistent kisses even as he leant away from them to breathe. “Now ye see,” he said, and he was laughing harder, almost hysterically at the strangeness of speaking the truth, “why I couldnae let anythin’ happen to ye.” He _must_ be dreaming, he thought. He was still out cold from his injuries, and the Doctor was standing by his bedside, and he had dreamt up some wild fantasy world where the Doctor would actually kiss him back. He could only hope that he did not talk in his sleep.

The Doctor sat down, lifting Jamie’s hands from his shoulders to finally, _finally_ kiss the backs of them instead, and there was no doubt in Jamie’s mind that he really had been longing to do it, in that moment before. His lips grazed over the bandages on one hand and the half-scabbed cuts on the other, and something sad settled over his eyes. “And now you see,” he repeated back, “why I don’t like the thought of you risking your life for me.”

“Aye, I know.” The thought of the Doctor carrying the same worries that he did almost made him feel a twinge of regret. Almost. “But I couldnae just leave ye. Not when – I -”

The words caught in his throat, netted in by the thick dust from the half-ruined city above that hung in the air around them. But the Doctor must have understood, because he simply squeezed Jamie’s hands. “Don’t say it now.”

“Och, I’m – I’m _sorry_ -” It was almost ridiculous in a way, that he could do all this – throw himself into the firing line for the Doctor, and tell him the honest truth about why he had done it, and _kiss_ him of all things – and yet all his bravery faltered at the thought of actually telling him that he loved him. “I -” The words faded away again, like mist in a butterfly net. Speaking the words would make them _real_ , he thought. Break him out of whatever dream-state he was living in and remind him that there was a world outside this bunker, and this everlasting argument of theirs. “I just wanted tae tell ye -”

“It’s alright.” The Doctor leant up to kiss him again, slowly like he was savouring it, carefully like he was taking the unspoken words from Jamie’s lips. “I’m, ah – afraid we don’t have the time. We have to try and get those data records again.” He clasped Jamie's arm to pull him up, but Jamie only raised himself a little way before collapsing back onto the mattress with a huff. “Ah. You’ll not get very far like this, I’m afraid.”

“Aye, I know.” A wave of bitterness washed over Jamie. “You’ll have tae go on your own.”

The Doctor frowned down at him, reaching out to rest his hands over his waist, and Jamie was suddenly glad that he was still sitting. The feeling of the Doctor’s fingers rubbing back and forth against his sides would surely have been enough to make his knees buckle. “You’ll be quite alright here,” the Doctor was saying softly. “I, ah, I won’t be long, and - I’ll be quite alright.” The corner of his mouth twitched slightly. “And no coming after me. It’s a shame I can’t bring you with me, just to keep an eye on you.”

It had not been particularly funny, all things considered, and yet Jamie found himself laughing. The memory of his last laugh made him lean in for another kiss, smiling against the Doctor’s lips. His mind was still reeling with the thought of kissing the Doctor, the painkiller-dulled edges soft enough that he still wondered if he might have made the whole thing up. Surely the real Doctor was doing nothing more than tending to his injuries, with no thoughts of kissing him or promises of staying safe. But if he was still dreaming, he was quite happy to stay that way. “I won’t do anythin’ silly if ye don’t,” he said.

“If you insist. And when I’m done -” The Doctor leant away enough for their noses to bump together, reaching out to take Jamie’s hands, his thumbs stroking over the loose ends of the bandages to roll them over until they were tucked in. “I’ll come back here, and see how you’re getting on, and you can say anything you’d like. We’ll have all the time in the world.”

It should have worried him more, he knew, to be letting go of the Doctor at a time like this, when so much was still unsaid between them. He ought to have been pushing himself off the bed and hobbling after him to get the both of them into terrible danger. Just a few minutes ago, he might have entertained that very thought. But something soft and peaceful had settled over him, cushioning him from the shrill sounds of the city burning, and filling the pit of his stomach with a calm certainty that the Doctor would be alright. That whatever they had started could not be stopped until it had run its course.

The floor beneath them shook with the impact of another bomb, sending the Doctor pitching forward into his chest. They clutched at each other instinctively, holding each other up, both staring up at the ceiling in trepidation. “All the time in the world?” Jamie repeated.

The Doctor’s eyes were darting around wildly, but when he spoke his voice was perfectly even. “All the time in the world.”


End file.
